


prism

by ruruka



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 08:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19195531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruruka/pseuds/ruruka
Summary: yes. take your boyfriend home to meet the family.





	prism

He can’t be certain why they’d ever bothered with the bell at the top of the door. Never has he walked through and found the front counter vacant; his grandfather is quite the golden retriever. Dust should scatter neath that proverbial tail.

“Hello, Miss. How can I he- Ah, is that you, Yuugi? Back so soon?”

The narrow aisle of Kame Game fits his steps down a ways, shadows traipsing the same as he through the _fresh_ sunlight of the window lined front. Something feels vacuous about trading those amber rays for the plate glass cage of the store inside. Sugoroku, first the hound, is too a hamster within, spiraling around his wheel of dusting the same packaged board games and card sleeves placed on the shelves six months before. Every so often, he’ll scamper upstairs (most often by the chiding of a daughter in law who works far too hard just to turn around and tell him off for working so hard, and then it’s Yuugi next who bears her finger pointing to guide him down behind the counter to take a shift, returning after an hour or so’s time to find his bed made and clothes folded), but not now. Now he stands in waiting, a double dose more chipper as he catches the gleam of his grandson’s approach in the June sun than to have greeted any other soul in the world here. The notion alone perks Yuugi a smile, though sheeply in a cling of fingers to his nape.

“Yeah,” breathes he, stark to stand tall and lever ledge even. “I just had to...pick something up. It didn’t take long.”

Whip quick, all the gathered mirth hides beneath the shade of stern. “I hope you aren’t referring to any drug paraphernalia, young man. I may be old, but I know good and well what you and Jounouchi are doing up in that room-“

“N-No, Grandpa!” He’s stricken to hook a finger in his white collar; a short sleeved button up is no choice well enough to suit such a task as he’s taken. Not smartly. Flagging the heat from his throat ends with his hand grasped back up beside him, with the release of an exhale thick enough to curve his mouth. In purpose. Everything with meaning. “Actually...I have a surprise for you, is what it is.”

And as fast as he’s tipped, Sugoroku bobbles back to placid kindness, hands folded on the glass top before him and eye corners pinching sweetly shut. “Ah, why didn’t you say so? What have you got for me, my boy? Something to go with that new window display?”

Two steps lay backward. Yuugi is soft at all his angles, no matter how age has tried to trim him. “Not exactly…” More steps, a finger lifted to signal a split second departure. Sugoroku nods, watching the slip of him through the front door again, and he needn’t soak in youth to hear the hush of whispers jousting each other just outside. At its peak, the conversation pierces down the javelin of Yuugi’s harshest murmurs, then silence, then a rewind on the tape to pull him back in toward the front counter, smiling tightly. He’s something to be anxious over, that much is perfectly certain.

The _something_ cuffs inside with a chime of the announcement bell.

Yuugi watches his grandfather straighten up, stiff as castle armor, protective.

“Kaiba.” That voice is not the one that’s read Yuugi to sleep, calmed his hysteria young and old, taught him though experience the fine, fine, fine art of gaming and all of its contours. That voice is gruff. Unsettling to Yuugi’s ears. But there’s been no shouting, not a threat should be tarry. He glances between that low grained tone, and in a dart up to the one it has landed upon, Kaiba and his ten foot self gleaning with flush behind his high collared aubergine coat.

“Mutou,” he replies, tongue fanning across the dry stretch of top lip whilst eyes motion darkly toward Yuugi, who nods him on to, “...-san.”

Above, the ceiling fan perhaps twice as old as the youngest among the three manages to whir the lint in the air around more. Kaiba coughs into a fist.

“...Grandpa,” Yuugi cuts between their knob lock eye contact. “I invited Kaiba over to meet you because- ah, well, of course you two have already _met,_ but that was a long time ago, so you haven’t really _met_ him, I guess- well, I-I just mean,” and he swallows the errs away. “I just...I know you didn’t really get off to a great start all those years ago- but, that’s just it. Kaiba’s twenty one now, that’s a lot more mature than before, right? So- so, uh...well, I think you should give him another chance because I-“

“I’m dating your grandson,” Kaiba says, the shotgun blow that puts Yuugi out of his misery.

Sugoroku blinks. Once. Twice.

As chivalry goes, ample time is left open in silence, awaiting the next one to say something or nothing, to move the slightest or pin himself solid. Yuugi clenches himself more compact as the seconds tick on the wall clock behind his head. Worry draws a knuckle to his teeth. It releases to instead nudge the one beside him, motioning once Kaiba’s gaze has hit him toward the clasp of hands behind the back. Kaiba grunts.

Stiffly, one arm lifts from its furl. In its hard end of a grasp, an envelope, a light blue shade that would fit a baby shower or birthday boy in any grocery store greeting card aisle. There’s no name written on it, as it’d be a waste of ink; the recipient stares it straight on, from the tip of Kaiba’s flawlessly filed pointer nail to the reluctance smearing his face.

Sugoroku accepts the envelope in two fingers. It’s enough to yank relief direct from Yuugi’s core, yet it is with hesitance he watches his grandfather peer at either side of the offering before delicately running a finger through its sealed edge to flip the top point opened. Inside, he pulls out a plain flat card not of greeting, but rather of eight stars.

Blue Eyes Alternative White Dragon. The intricate art of the card resembles familiarity, only minor differences in the patterns and look of the beast. When his hand tilts, ever slight, the light catches against its metallic surface and splays a hose water rainbow shine along it.

“...A replacement,” Kaiba all but mutters, not once casting his sight forth to see the way the old man admires the gift as Yuugi does, practically on the edge of his stupid seat over it.

Silently, Sugoroku nods.

“It’s an incredible card. Powerful, too. I’ve heard of it- they’ve been creating all sorts of variations to the original Blue Eyes White Dragon.” As of a crack of lightning, his hand meets the counter with the card trapped beneath. “I don’t want it.”

Yuugi gags on the force of it. “But- But, Grandpa! You were just saying how awesome and powerful that card is-“

“I don’t want a replacement! You kids these days have no respect for vestige!”

The shout draws Yuugi into a choke, skipping back to cling to himself in shelter. Swiftly, Sugoroku collects himself, clearing his throat into a fist as he twists toward a drawer at one hip.

“What I mean to say is,” proclaims his calmer self, digging about the drawer until he procures the desired artifact. “No matter how many fancy, rare or expensive new cards that get made, I’ll always prefer my own. Because it means far more to me than its power or prestige.”

In a hand, the remains of the fourth Blue Eyes White Dragon stand, her spine pieced together with a crude slice of scotch tape.

The glint in Kaiba’s eyes does not go unnoticed.

“I understand,” he says, enough to surprise Yuugi into a half gasp, falling fully out once touch draws forth to claim the card into two gentle hands, Sugoroku handing it over sans truculence. “I know that you do, Kaiba.”

Yuugi would drop dead if he weren’t certain he’ll never again see such a sight.

A thumb runs over the image of the card. Kaiba peers downward in what can only be labeled fondness. “If Pegasus had asked me before manufacturing all these new species, I’d have told him not to bother. Nothing could ever compare to the original.” He cups the card in both palms. “Nothing compares, yet I do find myself rather enamored by it all...”

Another round of shock dances around Sugoroku’s chuckle as he accepts the tattered card back to place inside its box. “It’s only natural to love your favorite card unconditionally. I’ve seen Yuugi ogling all those new Gandoras and Magician Girls many a time.”

“ _Guh- Grandpa-“_

“Kaiba, I appreciate the effort, but you can keep your card. All I need is to know you’ll care for my grandson as much as I do, and _never_ break that promise.” Steel keeps his gaze trained toward the one ahead. Lips pursed, hands tight, Kaiba nods to him.

The motion is returned. Yuugi’s spotlight mortification would suffocate him if the phone weren’t ringing loud enough to distract.

“Ah, I’ll get it, Grandpa,” he offers to keep the elder from bustling over toward the opposite side. In half the time, he strides for the wall line, chiming a retail plastic, “Good afternoon, thank you for calling Kame Game Shop, how can I-? ...Jounouchi, this number is for business calls only.”

Eyes pierce Yuugi as he turns against the wall, hand attempting to muffle his mouth against the receiver. “I can’t ta- What? ...Yes, of course we have Kuriboh cards. What do you-? Hang out? _Gh_...Asking me one question doesn’t make this a business call..!”

A heavy whisper claims his voice all the way around the other side of the wall beside him, tangling himself in the phone cord and quieting the rest of the conversation as it unfolds.

Kaiba bends the crick in his neck back forward. He isn’t shy by _any_ means, though standing in the quiet of the stuffy little shop tinges his stomach in the slightest ill, alone without mediation between he and the man before him. A lick tempts his mouth another time, and only for _something_ to do he takes to lifting the returned gift from its spot on the glass, slips it safely within his breast pocket. From there it’s all preening, shoulders back, posture austere, staring forward to the soft halo of light glimmering off the counter. Behind it, a voice spins thrice the season’s gold.

“The last time I saw my son,” Sugoroku says in a murmur, expression ageless with wonder, “Yuugi was eight. Almost nine. It was right after I returned from Egypt, when I first gave him the pieces to the Millennium Puzzle.” His lashes are short and grayed when he blinks them. Kaiba watches on in quiet, accepts the way a long gaze comes to rest on himself. “I want you to remember, all those times you think you’re alone in the world, that there’ll always be someone who can understand more than you think.” All at once, the rug whips with flourish from below him to reveal instead a broad white grin. “And when I say take care of Yuugi, I mean it. But don’t forget to take care of yourself, too. If you’re going to become part of the Mutou family, then you’re going to listen to Grandpa’s wisdom whether you like it or not!”

Consciously or otherwise, the tip of Kaiba’s nose lifts a notch, and in one sweep he’s nodding a stiff note of obedience.

“Sorry about that, uh, it was just a customer wondering about...when we’d have, um, new game mats in stock.” Yuugi’s scarlet cheekbones slide back among them, phone warm on its hook. He rubs just behind an ear. Kaiba swivels both eyes to the ceiling, though allows his elbow to be linked by another. “So...everything good?”

Sugoroku does not hesitate in nodding. “Everything’s wonderful. I gained a whole new grandson today.”

Yuugi clutches tighter his hold on Kaiba’s arm, heart thudding deep velvet against it, and laughs.

To the rhythm of it, Kaiba captures his breath evened whilst the tempo of ardor throbs in both ears.

Parting ways part as all must go. The gaggle of boys that alert the bell at the door top divert Sugoroku’s attention enough to earn just a half wave in goodbye; the clock reads just about the time school lets out around the city. His grandfather’s favorite time of day, the swiftness as to which summer will end it only that much richer.

Yuugi catches up to Kaiba’s strides on the pavement outside. Daytime has melted only slight, enough to dye the sun a hot honey shade that splatters the pair of them on their path toward the curbside car. “...Your grandfather is more tolerable than I remember,” Kaiba says as they’re buckling themselves within it.

Yuugi’s two hands perch on the steering wheel. Snorting laughter takes him, plucking the visor down ahead of him and eyeing his way forward. “I’m really glad that went so well. I can tell there’s no hard feelings anymore, he already seemed to love you, practically. ...Unrelated, but do you wanna meet Jou at the mall later?”

The ride eases toward the curving road ahead. Kaiba sinks against the seat, hand moving to shield his rolling eyes from the world. He can feel the sunroof open, and its wind of motion tease the top of his hair. He can feel the early summer air and the presence of Yuugi in his life right beside him. That’s what he needs, he thinks with certainty.

That’s all he needs to keep himself cared for.

Kaiba Seto is not a promise breaker.


End file.
